[brlug-general] Blocking port 25 does not cure spam problems.

[Dustin Puryear]

Will-

Saying you are playing a broken record is not an insult. It's the same
as saying someone is "beating a dead horse with a stick" or "going in
circles". That's a comment on what is being said (over and over), not
the person saying it. :)

--
Puryear Information Technology, LLC
Baton Rouge, LA * 225-706-8414
http://www.puryear-it.com

Author, "Best Practices for Managing Linux and UNIX Servers"
  http://www.puryear-it.com/pubs/linux-unix-best-practices

Identity Management, LDAP, and Linux Integration


willhill wrote:
> Personal insults don't contribute anything useful, Dustin, and you should know 
> better.  I sound the way I do because I care about freedom, which is the 
> primary attraction of free software.
> 
> Your arguments for blocking port 25 are interesting (indeed, I have subscribed 
> to your newsletter), but they are your own.  Cox uses other reasons, mostly 
> based on the inadequate security of Microsoft operating systems:
> 
> http://tinyurl.com/ytjer4
> 
> If Cox has greed as a motivator, they don't mention it and I don't think it's 
> paid off for them.
> 
> Charging different amounts for different bits on the same pipe is both 
> technically and morally wrong.  The legal theory of common carriers is 
> explained in nauseating detail here:
> 
> http://www.cybertelecom.org/notes/common_carrier.htm
> 
> but you don't have to delve into laws made for railroads and shipping to 
> understand the issues.  When I pay for bandwith, I should be able to use it 
> as I chose.  One bit is not different than another.  Cox's business plans 
> cost twice as much to start and provide less bandwith than residential plans.  
> 
> http://www.coxbusiness.com/pdfs/cbi_gl3p.pdf
> 
> Keeping me from using bits that I pay for is just wrong and I don't think it's 
> been a commercial success either.  You have showed me cheaper hosting options 
> that have better bandwith.
> 
> Non free networks will eventually destroy free software because it inhibits 
> people's ability to cooperate and share their changes.  If the big ISPs get 
> away with this on home networks, it's only a matter of time before they do so 
> elsewhere.
> 
> Arguments about ISP choice are spurious in the heavily regulated duopoly 
> system that's been set up.  The choices are equally non free and Cox, from 
> what I've read, is one of the better providers.  The people who set it up did 
> not really care about user freedom and the result is something that's 
> lurching back to the bad old Ma Bell days.  There are few actual choices here 
> in Baton Rouge and fewer in other places.
> 
>>From a technical standpoint, networks of unequal peers are more expensive and 
> less reliable than the internet is designed to be.  
> 
> http://www.isen.com/papers/Dawnstupid.html
> 
> You really can't have government regulation both ways.  If the public 
> servitude is regulated, it needs to serve the public not just the interests 
> of a few companies.  As the US falls further behind the rest of the world in 
> network performance, it's more apparent that the recent regulatory framework 
> has not delivered what it should.  Even Cringely noticed
> 
> http://www.newnetworks.com/BroadbandScandalIntro.htm
> http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070810_002683.html
> 
> Freedom, not performance is the metric by which networks need to be judged 
> anyway.  A fancy network that does not do what you want is a bad deal at any 
> price.  
> 
> Others have claimed that packets and frequency hopping obsolete ground lines 
> all together and that there's really enough radio frequency spectrum to meet 
> everyone's needs if it were not wastefully allocated to ancient broadcast 
> methods.
> 
> http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/06/02/1251233&mode=thread&tid=95
> 
> Finally, I would not have a problem with the inadequacies of other people's 
> spam filters if I was allowed to run my own mail server.  It may be a tough 
> nut for you, Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo to crack, but the free software world 
> is bigger than all of that.  Yahoo has a button that promisses to whitelist 
> individual senders, but I don't need their help.   This is something most 
> modern mail clients can do, with or without some "smart" hosts help.  Don't 
> those filters violate your belief in separating services and servers?  Even 
> if there is no solution and the internet will never be any better than the M$ 
> botnet swamp it is, the freedom to run my own mail server will save me from 
> someone else's "tough nut", "I know better than you do" censorship of my 
> mail.
> 
> If you tell me again that it's right for others to filter my internet 
> connection and email, I will tell you the above again.  The more I learn, the 
> more the story is the same.
> 
> On Sunday 23 September 2007 4:53 pm, Dustin Puryear wrote:
>> 2. On the argument that port blocking is similar to censorship or is in
>> someway wrong, I disagree. Cox and others offer a business class service
>> for more money that does not have these restrictions. I have no issue
>> with segmentation of service levels based on price. It's like paying
>> more for a car with leather seats. Don't like Cox? Go with AT&T. Don't
>> like AT&T? Go with Broadband IP. Don't like Broadband IP? Go with
>> <insert the several other choices you do have>.
>>
>> 3. On the argument that provider-controlled spam filtering is
>> censorship, well, frankly, that's just silly. For one thing, offering
>> per-user spam filtering control down to the training level is expensive
>> in terms of implementation and day-to-day management cost. I HELPED
>> BUILD a spam filtering appliance for a vendor as part of a development
>> consulting project. Trust me, this is a difficult nut to crack, and a
>> generalized spam filter goes a long way toward reducing spam and keeping
>> a provider's cost down.
> 
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